Four Fangs of a Daiyokai
by Silent Scribe
Summary: Simple and sweet short stories about Sesshomaru and his little girl. May induce Aww!s. Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
1. Transformation

**Transformation**

Sesshomaru knew it had to be done. He wasn't exactly sure why he didn't want to take the necessary course of action; after all, if Rin Planned to continue traveling with him, Sesshomaru would have to do it.

He would have to transform.

It went beyond explaining that his hand could be a set of venomous daggers or how his eyes glowed an unworldly red when he was in an ill-humor. Showing the girl his beastly true form was an entirely different story.

Yet it had to be done. Sesshomaru couldn't hold back in battle because it frightened some eight year-old whelp. The sooner he got the task of educating her out of the way the better.

So was the demon lord's resolve as he stood on the cliff's edge with Rin.

"You need to know," was all he said as he leapt over.

"Lord Sesshomaru!" Rin gasped shock at seeing her guardian take such reckless action.

Then she saw the tornado of pink aura that formed. What came out of it, however, was what snared her attention.

The monstrous fifty-foot dog that emerged from the storm of yoki, with its ruby eyes, great gray mane, and rows of pearly-white fangs, left Rin speechless.

Sesshomaru slid his head onto the cliff, keeping a blank expression. Internally, though, it took tremendous effort not to whine.

Even without the binocular vision of his temporary form, Sesshomaru still saw the way Rin scurried to her feet. His nose scented her skittishness. He had not intended to frighten her. He had hoped, the tiny, naive piece of himself, that she wouldn't act like the other humans, but...

Rin noticed the familiar navy crescent moon on the daiyokai's forehead. She then did something Sesshomaru would have expected if he had lived for all eternity. Rin smiled.

"Lord Sesshomaru!" she squealed, hugging what she could of his muzzle. "You're just like a big doggy!" She laughed. "My doggy!"

Sesshomaru was unsure if he was glad or disappointed that Rin couldn't understand his soft garbled growls.

"Pup," he had said. "My pup."


	2. Looking Up

**Looking Up**

"How 'bout now, Lord Sesshomaru?"

"Stay flat-footed, Rin."

"Rin obeyed, fiercely fighting the urge to stand on tip-toe against the bamboo stalk.

FWICK!

A silver of bamboo went sailing as Sesshomaru's talon nicked the space just above Rin's head.

"Wow! A whole two fingers from just one moon ago!" Rin marveled at the gap between the engravings on the stalk they had been occasionally visiting since the start of her

growth-spurt.

Smiling up at Sesshomaru, she remarked, "Someday I'm going to be as tall as you,

my lord!"

Jaken rolled his eyes which only earned him a glare from his liege. Before he could open his mouth, though, a swarm of Naraku's saimyosho appeared.

The hell-born wasps began to fly toward their target, Rin.

Rin gave startled shriek while Jaken, never very good with surprise attacks himself, was trying to figure out which end of his Head Staff was up.

Sesshomaru didn't think twice. His poison whip lashed with blinding speed, leaving shredded wings and stringers in its wake.

It didn't take long for the insects to figure out they would find no hostage here. As suddenly as the came, they left.

"Oh, thank you, Lord Sesshomaru!" Rin beamed.

"Let's move on." Sesshomaru started out of the bamboo forest, stepping on Jaken as he did so.

Rin spared one more glance back at the measuring stalk. And the dead wasps.

"Lord Sesshomaru?"

"Yes, Rin?"

"I think no matter how tall I get, I'll always look up to you."


	3. Lord of the Lilies

**Lord of the Lilies**

"Hold on, Master Jaken! I'm not finished yet!"

"Well, I _am_, you little menace! Now let go of me!"

Jaken was running for his dignity with Rin in hot pursuit. This was _not_ in his job description when he had given his services to Sesshomaru, and he hoped to the gods it never would be.

Quickly, Jaken reached to tear at the wretched, humiliating flower necklace, but his young ward was faster. Rin wrapped her arms around him in a bear-hug.

"Master Jaken, stay still a minute and then we can put the lovely crown upon your head!"

Jaken gave his master a doleful gaze. "Lord Sesshomaru..." he pleaded.

"Yes, Jaken?" Sesshomaru let the words hang in the air. He then leaned against a tree and started examining his talons. "What is it?" Smirking, Sesshomaru cracked his claws.

"N-nothing, my lord." Jaken sighed, surrendering himself to whatever torture the eight-year-old child had in store.

"Let's go and get you all dressed up for Lord Sesshomaru!" squealed Rin, dragging the hapless toad-demon off into the brush.

"Don't wander far, Rin," Sesshomaru droned.

"I won't!" she called back. Then, much to his chagrin, turned her full, undivided attention to Jaken.

When the sun had reached its zenith in the sky, Sesshomaru began to wonder what Rin was up to and if any misfortune had befallen her. Or Jaken.

The thought of what torment his subordinate could ne undergoing at the hands of a mere mortal girl compelled Sesshomaru to indulge himself in a rare upturning of lips. A smile.

Suddenly, the bush before him rustled, and he resumed his stoic mask. The demon, however, didn't feel any need to draw his sword as he sniffed out Rin and Jaken and ...flowers?

"Oh, c'mon, Master Jaken!" One of Rin's arms was still in the foliage, tugging at whom Sesshomaru assumed was Jaken. "I worked so hard to try to make you pretty. Don't you want to show Lord Sesshomaru?"

"NO!" was the harsh snap.

"Puh-lease?" whined Rin. "With sugar on top?"

"Not on your life, twerp!"

Rin squared her jaw, reached in with both hands, and yanked out Jaken into view for Sesshomaru and all the world to see.

As Jaken staggered to keep his footing, Sesshomaru saw why his servant wanted to remain hidden. He slipped a hand over his mouth as his amber eyes scrutinized the spectacle.

The toad-demon stood in the clearing, flushing from his natural olive-green tone to a beet-red, which actually complimented the cape of blue flowers lined with purple ones that draped over his shoulders. On top of that, Jaken donned a ring of daisies around his neck along with a crown of them around his head. Violets had been woven through his Staff of Heads and berry juice was smudged over his eyelids for makeup.

All this Sesshomaru would have been able to shrug off as he shifted his gaze to a less distracting scene, until Rin voiced his thoughts.

"Lord Sesshomaru, doesn't Master Jaken look like the Lord of the Lilies?"

Briskly, Sesshomaru whirled around and started strutting off as quickly as possible.

"Let's go," came the daiyokai's strangled response.

"See, brat?" Jaken barked, shredding the degrading vegetation. "You've mortified Lord Sesshomaru so much he can scarcely talk! Listen, he's probably muttering to himself about all the terrible nightmares he'll have from here on out!"

Rin did listen. And started to giggle. "I don't think he's speaking, Master Jaken."

Indeed, Sesshomaru wasn't mumbling about any demons that would disturb his subconscious. Rather he was doing something he hadn't in literally centuries since his father's death.

Sesshomaru laughed.


	4. Remember Me?

**Remember Me?**

"Lord Sesshomaru, someday when I die, will you still remember me?"

Rin had been quite young when she had asked that very mature question. The question that now coursed through Sesshomaru's mind as he and Jaken solemnly advanced to the grave in the open field. After all the other human mourners had left, of course.

When they approached the grave-marker, the toad-demon's foot brushed against a soft piece of material. Upon closer inspection, Jaken realized one of the humans had left some of the departed's ashes in a small pouch.

_Honoring a final request?_ he wondered.

Before Jaken could speak his observation, Sesshomaru had already picked up the small parcel.

_It had been hers_, Sesshomaru's nose whispered to him. The scent attached to the pouch brought back a thousand memories to the Western Lord.

The last time he saw Rin alive, Sesshomaru had been leaving her to live out the rest of her life with her own kind. It had been for the best.

"Lord Sesshomaru!" Rin had called when he was preparing to continue his journey without her. "Take this with you." It was a flower necklace like the ones Rin had crafted for him when she was a child. This one was fashioned out of fragrant sakura, cherry blossoms.

When Rin had seen Sesshomaru arch his eyebrows in almost reproach, she hastily added,

"To remember me by." And smiled.

Now Sesshomaru held Rin's ashes in his hand.

"_Will you still remember me?"_

Jaken stared up at his master. "Such a foolish thing," he heard Sesshomaru mutter. Expecting to see the pouch stashed away safely whin his master's robes, Jaken found himself dumbstruck as Rin's remains were callously flung into the wind.

Still sporting the same impassive expression he had arrived with, the daiyokai dropped the pouch next to the grave-marker, turned on his heel, and continued walking.

Jaken suddenly burned with the desire to speak in a tone he knew would result in a beating, but right now his mind was overcome with sentimental fury.

_After all those years of raising that child! After seeing to her every need with only the devotion _

_a parent could muster! How could _Lord_ Sesshomaru be so phlegmatic about her passing?!_

Jaken was about to make his declaration when something got caught in his windpipe. He briefly paused to hock up the blasted nuisance, then stopped again when he saw what it was.

A cherry blossom? How? There weren't any trees in the vicinity for miles.

Jaken glanced at his master and that raised another question in his mind.

_Since when did Lord Sesshomaru shed sakura petals from around his neck?_

The dog-demon must have felt his diminutive's stare because he adjusted the collar of his garments accordingly.

Indeed. Such a foolish thing.

_Author's Note: If you're wondering why I use daiyokai instead of _tai_yokai, it's just because that was the way I heard it first spoken and, since the two are interchangeable, I stick to the former. Anyways, I wrote this set of short stories because I like the father-daughter relationship Sesshomaru and Rin share (I'm a sap for that kind of stuff). I think it's sweet how Sesshomaru, who left his heart lying in some forest long ago, managed to gain a little bit of it back when he found Rin._


End file.
